


An Unlikely Courtship

by buttercups3



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, LJ 60 prompts in 60 days, Language, Prompt: Courtship, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blazing aimlessly away from the Tower (rather like this story), Bass runs into not-his-usual Matheson. And hell, he likes it more than he's willing to admit. Unnecessarily long Charm fluff with a smattering of UST. (No spoilers here.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unlikely Courtship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thursday (Notation)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notation/gifts).



> Seriously why the hell did I write this garbage? *cackles wildly* Oh well. Take it as a sign of my dedication to you, Thursday.

Galloping just to feel the wind whip his jacket, stretching the quarter horse’s nostrils to their maximum flare – Miles would chastise Bass for horse-cruelty if he were here. But Bass is trying to take pleasure in the fact that Miles is not. Because if Bass truly allows his innermost voice to edge in a word – which it’s been angling to do since two days ago – it might wallow in how devastating it was to hear Miles say: “Run, Bass,” instead of  “Come on, brother.”

The horse slows without prompting, and Bass supposes it’s for the best. Would he really have run the poor creature into the ground? Has he really lost all allegiance to fellow life forms? In truth, it _is_ difficult to clamber back up the downward slide of _fuck all_ , once you’ve so thoroughly committed yourself to it. Bass knows, because he ordered Jeremy executed, and Jeremy was practically the locus of the Republic. Could the slide go down any further than that? Well it could, and it had. Bass had thrice tried to kill Miles.

Some pretty intense shit had transpired since the second act of The Tower. (Bass is still trying to decide if this is comedy or drama. Which is the kind with bawdy sex-play and cross-dressing? – because it hadn’t come to either, unfortunately. And you sure as hell couldn’t tell by the ending – whether happy or tragic – because this is far from over.) There had been a lightning storm so angry, for instance, that Bass thought God had telescoped his ass with a great big rifle. Bass had hopped, danced, and flung himself to the nearest cover and then laughed hysterically, convinced his end was nigh. Once he’d dodged God, there was the fifteen-year old Albino girl he’d pilfered gold and this horse from. It felt mean, and it hadn’t even occurred to him to feel mean in years.

But it’s not until Bass rides into the nearest town that fate really tosses its dice at his head with a contemptuous _thunk_. He’s about to tie his horse up to scout out an inn, when he notices a straight-backed, golden-haired woman riding up. It’s fucking Charlie Matheson. And she’s alone. _She’s come for me._ He smiles, then hides in an alley.

He’s not scared, mind you. Though her mother’s a truculent banshee, and Charlie herself once offered her face to Strausser’s gun. (More than a little impressive.) So, why is he hiding? An ambush, of course. He’s only _just_ decided this in time, because she’s tied up her own horse and is striding by with a confidence that can only be described as Miles-esque.

He reaches out to grab her wrist and pirouettes her around into his arms to introduce the point of his blade to her graceful, milky throat.

“Hello, Charlotte,” he croons with satisfaction. Why _is_ he so tickled to see her again? Is it because – and this might be the gayest thought he’s ever had, so he’s glad no one can read his mind – she _smells_ like Miles? Maybe it’s just universal horse n’ grub, but it smells a little like fucking home. Bass is embarrassed enough that he loses focus and receives a bone-fracturing stomp on the foot. He has to flex it to figure out if it still works before huffily chasing Charlie down and clobbering her in the dust.

“Let me try again. Hello, Charlotte. Don’t fuck with me.” He hog ties her with some rope and drags her behind the row of shabby wooden buildings. “Why are you out here alone? Since when does Miles let you out of his sight?”

Charlie grumbles, spits, and fights her bonds, so Bass decides to encourage her. He points his sword at her little, round breast – the one obscuring her beating heart. “So?”

“I’m going after Neville,” she ejects like a bullet.

“That traitorous fuck. What do you want with him?”

“Not Tom. Jason.”

Bass’s mouth falls open into a classic _huh_? He scratches his whiskers – a sound like claws on sandpaper.

“They’re riding into disaster. Randall pointed a pair of nuclear missiles at Philly and Atlanta.” Charlie attempts to scamper to her feet despite the rope. She’s very persistent. The rope brands pink creases into her perfect skin.

The sight (and the nuclear devastation of his once-glorious empire) makes Bass sad, so he feels compelled to offer: “If you promise not to step on me again, I’ll untie you. My quarrel’s not with you anymore.”

“Hahaha!” she laughs so heartily it flips the pissy switch in him for a moment. “Well _I_ have a quarrel with you, Bass Monroe. And the second you untie me, I’ll kill you!”

Bass folds his arms and _tsks_ at her. “Brave but stupid. I have a lifetime of experience with this brand of Matheson. You’ll never win with me, Charlotte.”

She purses blushed lips. “You think you know Miles so well. How’d you miss that he wanted to desert you – to kill you? Nah. You don’t know shit about us Mathesons. Your brand of stupid comes with an extra drizzle of cowardice and _crazy_.”

Bass flops in the dirt and frowns at her. The last insult does cut a bit, but he keeps it light. “That’s hurtful.” He pauses for a moment to scrutinize the stars. There are so many of them now – it’s just like being in Iraq. Lace patterns on a midnight canvas. “Do you like stars, Charlotte?”

“I swear to God, if you call me that one more time, I’ll raise hell until somebody from town comes out here and shoots you.

“Why not do that now?”

“Because this seems as promising a time as any to kill you once and for all.”

“Oh. You don’t want anyone’s help with that?”

“It’s much more satisfying when you do a job yourself.”

“Hm. I wouldn’t really know anymore, I’ve been giving orders so long. I guess I do miss being a sergeant. Say, I’ve got an idea. How about I untie you, and we find the Nevilles together? I’d like a word with Tom.”

“You mean you want to kill him. Miles told me you’ve been usurped. (Can’t imagine why, you psychotic son-of-a-bitch.)”

Bass shrugs. “I promise I won’t kill your boyfriend. Just his dad. Speaking of Miles – why isn’t he here? Not like him to let you go wandering alone.”

“None of your business.”

“That bad, huh?” Bass knows what it is to argue with Miles. “Well _Charlie,_ I swear if you ride with me, I’ll keep you safe. In fact, I already promised your mother I wouldn’t harm you, and I intend to keep my word. I’ll help you find Jason Neville, if you, in return, promise not to kill me. I’m going to untie you now so we can shake on it. But first…” Bass grabs her crossbow and arrows and drops them in a little pile. Unceremoniously, he sets them on fire with a piece of flint, blowing on the embers until he’s coaxed a regular blaze.

She glowers.

“Now.” He unties her and puts out his hand.

After a long moment, where her cute little forehead puckers like a grandma, she takes his hand and allows him to help her up. “I accept your offer. But once we find Jason, all bets are off.”

“Deal!” Bass actually claps his hands together in glee. He’s not sure why he’s so giddy at the prospect of an adventure with Charlie. Is it because he appreciates her spunk? Or because she is, quite frankly, a tasty piece of ass?

“Well Charlie, I can tell you right now we’re at least half a day ahead of the Nevilles and their rogues, so my plan is to check into that inn over there, drink my weight in whiskey and then stuff a good night’s sleep under my belt. You like?” You like – it’s what he’d always say to Miles when proposing a particularly self-serving plan that Miles would almost certainly object to.

Charlie dips her head a little – blonde mane silvery in the starlight. “I like, Monroe. Lead on.”

She’s conceded with alarming alacrity.

“Um, you first, Matheson. I don’t want a spur in my ass.”

Bass is not daft. He realizes that Charlie is probably just looking for the opportunity to stab him, but hey, this is fun. She’s like Miles with tits. He ogles the perfect moon of black jeans bouncing toward the inn.

Hours later, Charlie has been keeping up with him in drinks…but how is that possible? She can’t weigh in at more than his right leg. The room wobbles and blurs into a spinning wheel of circus doom.

By the time they’re heading up to their room, Bass’s boots feel like they’ve been dunked in wet cement. He stumbles so violently up the last one, that he finds himself on all fours. Charlie smirks. Seriously, how is she not drunk off her scrumptious little hiney?

Once they’re inside, Bass leans against the closed door, swaying. “Now what?” he slurs.

“Time to get undressed.”

Bass’s eyes bulge slightly, and he begins fumbling with his buttons. Charlie plunks down in a chair, her legs spread like she’s keen on world domination – just as Miles would do, but you know, without the hotdog and beans.

It’s like Bass has never met buttons and a zipper before he’s so inept, but Charlie isn’t helping. She’s watching him with flat, lake-blue eyes. After eons of pathetic fumbling, he’s entirely stripped to his boxers and catapults himself onto the bed like its prom and his cherry is ripe for the popping. Alas, she has made no move to undress. Perhaps this is a trap. Trap or not, it’s been fun so far.

At last Charlie occupies the space between them and clamps her hands onto his ankles, sliding her calloused fingertips up the blonde hair of his legs, creating near Indian-burn friction. His body makes a sorry little attempt to divert blood where it might be needed, but he’s pretty drunk.

She shifts so her fully-clothed, lithe body hovers just above him and whispers close to his lips (only a touch of alcohol on her breath – she must have been tossing it, he realizes), “What do you want, Bass?” Throaty, breathy, hot.

That’s it. That’s all that happens, or at least all he remembers. The late-morning sunlight scalds his eyes open. He jumps with a start, as his body salaams to the king of hangovers. His hands are tied to the headboard and his bag of gold, oddly, is plopped on his crotch. He can tell from here that, aw goddammit, she's taken his swords in retaliation for the crossbow bonfire. If he rests his chin just right on his chest he can make out a note written, no doubt, in the hand of Charlotte Matheson. Upside-down he reads:

_Mathesons always keep their words (at least the parts we like). See you after I find Jason. I’d watch my back._

The corners of Bass’s mouth flicker upward. “I’ll look forward to that, Charlie,” he announces to the note and orders his pants: “Here, boys.” Alas, his command-issuing days are over.


End file.
